HC Deb 17 July 1973 vol 860 cc240-2
10. Mr. R. C. Mitchell

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he is taking to recruit and train more speech therapists.

Mr. Alison

Recruitment is a matter for individual employing authorities who are aware of the need for more staff. Training was the subject of recommendations in the Quirk Report which we are still considering.

Mr. Mitchell

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the present acute shortage of speech therapists is causing great anguish to the parents of many children who need speech therapy? Is he further aware that there is little chance of obtaining a greater supply of speech therapists until the salary scales are radically reviewed upward?

Mr. Alison

I am well aware of the shortage of speech therapists. Professor Quirk drew attention, and the hon. Gentleman will no doubt recall it, to the extraordinary figure of wastage in this profession which I am unable to believe would be radically altered by sensational increases in salaries.

Dr. Stuttaford

Would not my hon. Friend agree that the answer to this Question and to Questions Nos. 5 and 6 is one and the same, namely, that we cannot expect girls leaving school to go into a job which will pay them only one-half or one-third as much as they would get as typists? If we are to have a National Health Service with the best type of girl, capable of earning a reasonable salary, she must he able to get that reasonable salary from the NHS.

Mr. Alison

My hon. Friend must recall that the real problem is not that we fail to attract young girls into the service. We do not. It is that they leave the service to get married very soon after they have joined.

Dr. Summerskiil

Since there are only men speech therapists practising in the whole of the United Kingdom, may 1 ask what steps the hon. Gentleman is taking to project speech therapy as a rewarding and attractive career for men—or does he regard it as a woman's job since the rates of pay are low, the prospects of promotion few and there is inadequate professional status and poor working conditions?

Mr. Alison

The hon. Lady has given a quick thumb-nail sketch of some of the deficiencies to which the Quirk Committee drew attention. As she knows, we are considering the Quirk recommendations and I hope that we will achieve the long-range projections of recruitment and maintenance of staff in post which Professor Quirk set out.

Dame Irene Ward

Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that all the professions in the supplementary-to medicine group are underpaid? May we hear from the Secretary of State how he is getting on in his talks with the Treasury? This is important.

Mr. Alison

My hon. Friend, whose experience in this area is unexcelled in the House, will know that the Whitley Council machinery which determines the pay of this group of workers is an independent voluntary organisation over which we have no direct influence or control.

Mr. William Hamilton

Will the hon. Gentleman now answer the question which I asked him when we debated the Quirk Report and which he did not then answer, namely, whether the pay increase which is to be given to these young girls, back-dated to April, will have to conform to phase 2 of the prices and incomes policy—that is, £1 plus 4 per cent.—or whether it will be an exceptional case? It ought to be the latter. If it is not, it will be a national scandal.

MT. Alison

I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman's question because it is not within my power to do so. Obviously, any pay proposal falls within whatever is the current phase of the prices and incomes policy.